


Blinding

by Chromophilic_Daydream



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Blindfolds, First Kiss, Hand Feeding, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromophilic_Daydream/pseuds/Chromophilic_Daydream
Summary: Ren is a wildcard. He is a hazard to Goro’s goals, and still he can not manage to pull himself away. No matter how many times he’s told himself in the last few weeks to abandon this newly budding emotion building inside of him, he can not manage to kill it.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 179





	Blinding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aryll on Twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Aryll+on+Twitter).



> I finally dug myself out of a creative hole for this one shot fic because I saw a funny tweet from [Aryll](https://twitter.com/aryllins/status/1276548978289639425?s=20).  
> Thank you to [Reiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selvanic) for always beta'ing for me! I don't know what I'd do without you.

“Ren, what are you doing?”

He sees the tug of a smile before the young man before him closes the distance between them and presses his hands down on his shoulders. He obliges and sits in the stool Ren guides him to.

“Just trust me, okay?” He asks yet waits for no answer. That’s the problem though: he  does  trust him. Far too much. However, that trust yields to the detective’s curiosity. He’s mindful of the long strip of cloth in Ren’s hand.

“What’s going on?” He can hardly keep the suspicion out of his tone, and yet Goro finds himself comfortable on the creaking seat beneath him. Silence is his answer, and a small smirk on the barista’s face is the last thing he can surmise before his vision is robbed from him. 

Ren’s deft fingers tie a mindful knot in the fabric wrapped around his head, plunging his world into darkness.

Still, Goro feels calm and in control, as cool as the encroaching autumn outside this place, as certain as his trained finger on the trigger of a pistol.

“Comfortable?” he hears. Ren’s voice is further away, if he has to guess, from behind the counter of the cafe.

“Amused that you haven’t given me a direct answer yet. Skirting around my questions with your own questions is quite rude, you know?”

“Back at you, Mr. Detective.” 

He pulls in a deep, even breath and feigns a smile. He’s so infuriating. Even still, Goro finds himself captivated. He knows, deep down, that any interaction with Ren is dangerous. There’s a deep-seated pride he takes in his ability to calculate his personal relationships to benefit himself. Niijima Sae is a colleague he uses to puppet around investigations to his liking. Niijima Makoto’s one-sided rivalry with him has had plenty of use to get close to the now confirmed Phantom Thieves. Everyone else, useless names and empty faces that built the rungs of the ladder he fashioned himself to get to Shido, to get to his revenge.

Yet, Ren is a wildcard. He is a hazard to Goro’s goals, and still he can not manage to pull himself away. No matter how many times he’s told himself in the last few weeks to abandon this newly budding emotion building inside of him, he can not manage to kill it.

Being with Ren was always a breath of fresh air, and now he finds himself choking on it.

But he refuses to be blinded by whatever fleeting feeling he was experiencing. It was easier to ignore it…only it was difficult to ignore Ren.

“I have something for you.” Ren’s voice breaks into his thoughts, stealing his reservations. A bubble of excitement bursts in his chest.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, but you can’t look. That’s the only thing.”

Goro frowns and leans on the counter. Or where he thinks is the counter. His elbow slips and it takes a second for him to compose himself again.

“I’m not so sure I like this suggestion.”

“Eh, what do ya got to lose?”

My dignity , he thinks bitterly. “Fine.” It was better to get whatever he was planning over with so he could leave and not deal with Ren and the hammering in his chest.

“I have some food here,” he hears Ren explain. “I want you to try it.”

Goro raises an eyebrow behind the scrap of fabric. “Excuse me?”

“It’s nothing spicy, promise.”

“That’s not the concern I have.” It’s partially the concern he has. “Why, exactly?”

“Well…every time we’re hanging out you never mention you like what you order. I dunno. You talk a lot, but I don’t really get what you’re saying.”

He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest but Ren continues to explain.

“You’re always talkin’ about how the food looks and expectations and  blah, blah, blah. ” Goro feels his pride sting in his chest along with the other conflictions that are storming inside of him. He almost wants to get up and just leave.

“So I got some stuff for you to try just to see if you actually like it.”

His proud ego softens a bit. Just a bit.

“You want me to…eat things?”

“Well…yeah.”

“I think I’m going to regret asking this, but I have to know…why?”

“Ah, usually we welcome new people with a party or something.” He can hear Ren trail off quietly, no doubt not able to actually look at his blind-folded comrade. “But—”

“But you don’t know how because it’s me,” Goro finishes, sitting back in the seat.

“Yeah. So I figured I’d be your welcoming party.”

He stills and contemplates. This was strange, sure…but at this point wouldn’t it be weirder to refuse? It was almost as if Ren was sizing him up, seeking to challenge him in some way. Perhaps to see how reliable he was? Perhaps to try to understand some deeper meaning to the way Goro presented himself to the world? 

The thought of someone close to him surprising him like this, going out of their way to put together something for him is…nice. Regardless of the intention Ren holds. A welcoming party…a chance at acceptance he has never felt before. Heat stains his cheeks and he is grateful the blindfold covers a good portion of his face.

“I see.”

“And afterwards, I’ll take you to whatever place you liked the most. No judgement here.”

He can’t help the small smile that forms on his lips, he can’t stop it.

“Fine, I accept.”

“Awesome. Okay.” He can hear Ren rubbing his hands together in childish excitement and wonders why on earth the idea of taking Goro out for dinner was so appealing to him. But he decides to table that thought for now.

“Okay, I have six things. Three savory and three sweet, yeah?” 

“Alright.” Goro holds out his hands just as something presses up against his lips. He flinches in surprise and backs up in his seat.

“Ah, sorry. I should have told you.”

He prickles, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. “What are you doing?”

“Feeding you? You have no idea what I have and I thought it’d be difficult to navigate.”

Goro feels his face heat up once more yet doesn’t want to back down from the challenge. “Alright.” He swallows hard and holds his lips apart ever so slightly.

Something crispy enters his mouth. The salt hits his tongue first. Whatever it was, it’s breaded and firm on the outside yet tender on the inside. There was a bit of spice but not something he couldn’t handle. It was delicious, and he hums his approval. No doubt it was a fancy cutlet of some sort.

“I enjoyed that,” he says, hiding his mouth behind his gloved hand and brushes any crumbs away from his lips.

“Okay, that’s option one,” Ren says and Goro can hear the infuriating smirk on his face though he can’t see it.

Once again the chopsticks prod into his mouth and he suddenly feels overwhelmed by the cold and almost tasteless thing in his mouth. He coughs on it, forcing his teeth through it as he chews into the thick, rubber-like texture. He hears Ren whistle. 

“I’m surprised. Didn’t like that one as much?”

Goro shakes his head. “No, I didn’t care for that much at all.” He can taste some sort of sauce that accompanied the food on the very back of his tongue. He desperately wants water. He can’t even venture to guess what that was. It wasn’t awful, but not as good as the first option.

“Option three?” 

He nods and clears his throat. Something warm and rich invades his senses. It’s chewy but not like the last thing. Dense and delicious but without much of a difference in texture. It isn’t as good as the first thing he tried though, and Goro finds that he vastly prefers the first thing he tried.

“Well?”

“Option 1 was my favorite. What was it?”

“Can’t deduce that yourself, Sherlock?” 

He scowls and lets out a sigh. “Get on with the desserts then.”

“Alright.” 

A cloyingly sweet thing presses past his lips. It isn’t unpleasant but the sweetness of the chewy dessert conflicts with the bitterness in it as well and makes him wrinkle his nose. It was definitely a cake, but not one he recognizes. 

“I’m going to take that as a no.” It’s almost infuriating to hear Ren sound so confident. He doesn’t like how easily he can read him.

“Option two please.”

This is far more mellow and earthy. Sweet and sticky yet with an inconsistent texture he can’t place. He doesn’t care for it at all. His tongue darts around the inside of his mouth, trying to get the pieces of whatever it was out of his teeth before proclaiming his dislike of the dessert.

“Okay, last one.” 

He braces himself and bites down on yet another cake. Only this one has layers and is mild in taste. It’s sweet but not too sweet, the thin layers of cake easy to chew and the cream that accompanies it is light and delightful. He chews the bite and smiles to himself.

“That was enjoyable.”

“Good. So you liked option one from the food and option three from the dessert?”

“I believe so.”

He feels a bit of pressure behind his head, he feels the warmth of Ren’s arms around his ears, and the blindfold comes off. The world comes into focus again and he sees the wide smile on the leader of the Phantom Thieves’ face. He feels his heart skip a beat when Ren’s slate gray eyes soften behind plastic lenses.

“What?”

“Ah…” The very tips of Ren’s ears are stained red. “You have a bit of cream on your…face.”

“I do?” He brushes his cheek off. “Better?”

“No, let me.” Ren’s thumb gently swipes against Goro’s lips. His breath catches in his throat. They are close, far too close. He can see the darker shade around Ren’s irises, he can feel Ren’s staggered breathing on his face. The intimacy sneaks up on them both and neither of them can break their stances.

His heart rages against itself, breaking down his own resolve as the world falls silent around them. His own body freezes in time as their eyes meet; his pride crumbles into a pile of rubble in his chest. Goro knows how dangerous this game is, knows how stupid it is to let Ren get closer, and yet he can’t help himself. He hates just how easily he’s let his defenses down, how much he trusts Ren with secrets he’s lived with his whole life.

He hates how much he trusts Ren and hates that he is just another person Goro has to take down to achieve his goals.

He hates how far Ren has gone to try to understand him when no one else in his life has done the same.

He hates how he lets the distance between them close, how their breaths mingle, how he leans into the other’s space across the counter. 

He loves how welcome Ren’s lips feel against his own. 

There are no other thoughts of resentment that exist in that moment. The only thought in his head is how easily Ren’s hand slips in to his, how easily their fingers lace together…

How easily his lips part to accept Ren’s tongue into his mouth and how he returns it with heated urgency. This feels good…this feels right.

And that scares him more than anything. It makes him feel alive.

He feels Ren’s fingers in his hair, smoothing out the tousled mess from where the knot of the blindfold rested. Their kiss lasts for an eternity, for a few moments.

Ren is the one to break it. “I-I don’t know what came over me,” he murmurs, yet doesn’t back away from Goro. “I think…I’ve wanted to do that for a long time actually.”

The words are sweeter than anything he had eaten this evening. They burn down his throat as he processes what just happened. He hates how he savors the taste of Ren’s tongue in his mouth. Hates how great it makes him feel.

Goro is the one to back away first and clears his throat. “You don’t say?” He doesn’t know what else to ask, what else to contribute to the conversation. That was the problem with Amamiya Ren: he always manages to catch Goro off guard.

But it still makes him feel a pleasant warmth he’s never experienced in his whole life.

“You’re not mad?” 

“No…” He surprises himself when the truth falls from his lips so easily. “I think I’ve been wanting to do that for a while too…”

The grin that spreads on Ren’s face is so bright it hurts him to look at it. He hears Ren start to chuckle. It’s a soft, joyous sound that infects him. He starts to laugh too. If only it could always feel like this.

Maybe if they had met sooner. Maybe if fate had dealt them a different hand…then maybe. 

The comfort he feels right now will have to do. 

They exchange glances once more and Goro can’t help but indulge in the sensation of being wanted by another human being for being himself. Deluded and temporary, but wanted all the same.

“Well, why don’t get going then? My treat, remember?”

Goro almost forgot about the whole point of the evening: his welcoming party. Eager for a change of subject, he stands and adjusts his shirt collar.

“Okay, where are we going then?”

“Well, you chose a crepe cake from 777 over a tiramisu and mochi.” Ren explains as he strips off his apron. Goro’s eyes follow the movement, cursing himself for being so captivated by Ren. His eyes flicker to the counter and sees the evidence of the deserts.

Given normal circumstances, he would have absolutely gotten the tiramisu had he seen it. 

“And between the entrees you had hamburger steak, tuna sashimi and… well chicken nuggets from McDonalds.” Ren concludes and flashes Goro a sinister grin.

Goro feels his face pale instantly. The expensive cutlet…. 

“I didn’t—”

“Oh you absolutely did. Come on, let’s go.”

The detective stares at the outstretched hand and lets out a loud sigh. Perhaps he’d let himself be blinded a little bit more by the charms of this amazing boy. For just a little longer. 

He grabs Ren’s hand and they quickly leave the comfort of LeBlanc behind, and Goro feels as light as a feather as the two of them go and spend the evening being stupid teenagers for the first and probably the last time.


End file.
